


Not This Time

by calipta



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, So Bear With me, What Have I Done, blame my period, harry is an angsty mess, i cried so much after writing this, i've never written gay fic before, lots of swearing, louis is dumb, reality os, sorry there's like one mention of the other boys, this is a new thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:27:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calipta/pseuds/calipta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis gets married.</p><p>Harry tries to stop him after the wedding, which. Unproductive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not This Time

**Author's Note:**

> lots of feels, i have absolutely no idea how to use ao3, just, i love it a lot and i spend all my nights reading fic on here, and this is my first larry oneshot and I can see I've already hit rock bottom.
> 
> sorry about all the dialogue.

So there was this thing, you see. When they were a band and famous and on top of the world and innocent, before the world kind of molded them into what it wanted them to be.

It was called The Larry Stylinson Tumblr Tag, as the boys (well, Niall and Liam and Zayn) called it, this white elephant in the room that was never really talked about. (The fans speculated a lot, though, God bless them for it. Harry thinks they saw a lot more than he or Louis ever did.)

Harry’s not quite sure where all those gifs came from (all the interviews have blurred into one long stream of questions questions questions, but when he sees the pictures, he remembers in vivid HD), but he remembers being acutely aware of Louis. (That was how his mind worked, see; whenever he was close to Louis, he would turn to an irrelevant sort of mush – quite the innovative tracking device, that.)

He’s also pretty sure that they spent time together, like. A lot of it. In the same room. Preferably talking to each other. (In fact, he sort of had this inkling that they were close, like, as friends should be, but closer, but he regards his inklings with a fair amount of dubiousness now, because, well, they never really end up as he thought they would.)

So he’s not really sure why he’s standing, in a tux, in front of a mirror, looking completely freaked out, because it’s a wedding, and it’s not even his. He’s, like, the best man, or. Something. Fuck, he’s just completely forgotten what significant part he plays in the wedding, so he goes to find Louis, because that boy is never where you expect to find him.

***

Louis is facedown with his head in a toilet bowl, which. Never happens. Harry is worried.

“Lou?”

“’M gonna die,” muffled by the hollow porcelain.

Oh, right. It’s Louis’ wedding day, how could Harry have forgotten? “Isn’t your nearly-wife meant to be doing that? Er, vomiting, I mean?”

“She is,” followed by a fair amount of heaving and the sound of liquid forcibly hitting water. Harry winces in sympathy before he remembers.

Right. Nearly-wife. Eleanor. The nice girl that’s stuck around for ages. Harry can’t hate her, except he does; he kind of loves Louis, and not in the best-friends-forever kind of way; he figured that out right about the time Louis proudly announced that he was engaged. (Harry kind of shrank into himself after that; the boys all watched on in sympathy and offered a few pats on the back.)

Harry doesn’t know what to do with a vomiting Louis unless he’s drunk. This Louis is sober. Very sober. Extremely sober. “I. Um, you’ll be fine?”

Louis chuckles, face still buried in the toilet, and it turns into a worrying hacking sound, which prompts Harry to rub his back, because he’s never quite sure what to do with himself unless he’s touching Louis. (Marriage to another person will make that hard, right? Harry’s sure that no matter how nice Eleanor is, jealousy would probably kick in if she saw her husband cuddled up with his best friend all the time, and. Harry is the king of jealousy. It turns him into a sordid twat, which is irrelevant. Louis’ marriage is irrelevant. Eleanor is irrelevant. Harry is irrelevant. Everything is irrelevant.) “You are absolutely shite at giving comfort, do you know that?”

“Um, s’not my specialty,” Harry shrugs, forgetting that Louis With His Head Buried In The Toilet Bowl can’t see him.

“Right, okay then.” Louis resumes hacking. (Harry is getting worried.)

***

Harry almost laughs during the vows, because Taylor played all her albums for him while he was dating her (“Harry, this was my first album, can you believe how far it’s gotten?”) and there was this one that stuck in his head called Speak Now, something about how she was at this wedding and hiding in the curtains ‘cause the bride was a downright bitch and didn’t invite her (Harry can’t relate – Eleanor’s too nice to not invite anyone), about how the bride had this dress on that looked like a pastry and had a snotty family (this, Harry can relate to; he thinks that El’s parents are very, very uptight, rich, and, well, snotty, and, well. He’s a nice person, he likes to think so, but not when it comes to Louis marrying people that aren’t him), and how Taylor imagined that she stood up when the preacher said “speak now, or forever hold your peace” and objected and ran off with…what was his name again? Yeah, ran off with her guy.

Harry imagines that he shouts “objection” at the guy in shorts who’s conducting the ceremony when it gets to that speak now bit, but somehow, it’s all very dead silent and intimidating and no, nope, he can’t do it, can’t make himself stand up and object to Louis’ wedding, because he’s too passive for all of this.

And then Louis says “I do” and El is smiling and saying “I do” and they’re kissing giddily, and Harry wonders what would have happened if he had kissed Louis in the bungalow when they were naïve and wide-eyed and just looking at each other, wonders if it would feel the same as Louis feels when kissing El, if it would feel better.

Guess he’ll never know, not now. Not when Louis is looking too heartbreaking for words, and, well. There’s nothing he can do; his best mate is a married man.

***

He calls Will in the bathroom, trying his very hardest not to sob his eyes out over something so pathetic. He’s in his twenties and he’s a man; men don’t cry.

“S’okay, man,” Will is saying. “He lost out on you – hey, don’t cry.”

“M’not,” Harry sniffs before leaning over the sink. “I’ll have you know, I am perfectly fine.”

“Nope, you’re not. My best mate just got his heart broken, so where’s this Louis guy? Imma give him a piece of my mind.” Will sounds properly infuriated, as all good mates ought to be.

“No, you won’t,” Harry says, defeated, before straightening. “Right, I best get back out there, they’re probs wondering where the best man got off to.”

***

He has to give this speech, and he tells everybody what a great friend Lou is and how much he loves him, and he hopes that Eleanor treats him well and loves Lou to pieces like he deserves and shit. (El smiles at him gratefully, like she knows, and he wonders why it feels like a funeral.)

And then everyone else is giving their speeches, and Lou and El are dancing, and then everyone is dancing, and Harry just sits there until a shadow looms over him.

“Hey,” Louis says, quiet amidst the party music. Strange, really, because he’s never quiet.

“Hi,” Harry says, not looking up.

A brief pause, and then, “Want to dance?”

“People would stare,” Harry says hopelessly before Louis takes his hand in his little one and drags him out onto the dance floor.

“So what’s your flaming problem and why are you being the saddest person at my wedding?” Lou attempts to spin them around, fast, and Harry focuses on not stepping on anyone’s feet.

“M’not,” he mumbles, but Louis pokes his chin, makes him look up.

“Hey,” he says softly, and Harry looks into those understanding blue eyes and pulls out of Louis’ grasp, pushes and shoves his way out of the room.

***

Louis follows him.

Harry can tell, because even though Lou tries not to make a sound, he can feel his body gravitating towards Louis, can feel every move he makes behind him, on the balcony.

“You know,” and Harry leans over the railing, looks down at London, at where it all started, “everyone always thought. They all thought that we’d end up together, you know?”

Louis says nothing, but Harry can feel the sadness emanating from him, the silent so that’s what this is about.

“You had to know,” Harry says, deep and raspy. “You had to know. We spent years attached at the hip, Lou, you had to see the way I looked at you. You had to.”

Louis takes one step closer.

“I –" and Harry breaks off, chokes down a sob. “It’s never really sunk in, see. Not ‘til today. That. We weren’t going to end up like I thought we would.”

Louis is behind him now, and Harry can feel him shaking, wonders if he’s crying, too. Wonders if he knows now.

“I always thought – Mum always thought, even. She gave me the whole gay talk and shit, and it all came to this. She knew though. She told me to not take it too seriously when you let me down, and – shit. I never thought it’d hurt so fucking hard, y’know?” Harry gives a harsh laugh, sighs. “I just. Never thought about it not happening. That’s what I get for, well, always being the optimist. Even Gem saw. She saw it coming.”

“Haz,” Louis whispers, and that’s it. Harry breaks down, sobbing, folds himself into Louis, feels his heart break into a million tiny little pieces, and just hangs on.

He doesn’t know how long he cries into Louis. Doesn’t know how long it takes.

“I did,” Louis says eventually into his ear, seconds, minutes, hours later. “I saw the way you – the thing is, Haz, you adored me. You still do. I didn’t know what to do with that.”

“Then why Eleanor?” His voice is tinny and cracked and he feels Louis swallow.

“I love her, Harry.”

“Did you –” he can’t say it. “Did you love me? At any point in time?”

Pause. “I think I did.”

What happened to that? he wants to say, but he doesn’t. He takes a deep breath instead, wonders what it would feel like if he jumped off the railing right now. 

Louis bites his lip, runs his hands over Harry’s back as if he’s memorizing the feel.

“I fell so fucking hard,” Harry says finally, pulls away from Louis. “I loved you so much, every day, and the fans didn’t help, they never did, they just. They saw it all. And I was the one they all wanted, but they all said they’d give me up if you’d have me, and that kind of broke me, because they all saw it, but you never did, because you were there being wonderful and running the band and making everybody laugh and wearing yourself thin and you never saw anyone loving you, but the world did.”

Louis blinks, and there’s a shine to his eyes when he looks up. “Haz. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Harry says. “You’ve got the love of your life and millions of dollars and I’ve got millions of dollars and an empty flat and supermodel girls that only want me to fuck them and never attempt to make me breakfast or stay to watch me wake up in the morning.”

What he’s really saying is that Louis stayed ‘til the morning, snoring in his ear and wrapped all around him even though they didn’t get up to anything. He wonders if he clings to Eleanor like that, now.

Louis opens his mouth then shuts it, hurt searing through his eyes. “What can I do now, Harry? Can I take it all back, or? Would that do it for you?”

And Harry sees it, hears it, Harry sees the pain that Lou went through when he would bring his girls home and fuck them into the bed so hard that there was a hole in the wall the next morning. Harry understands why he chose Eleanor; because he loved her and felt safe with her and she wasn’t this rollercoaster of fights and late nights and drunk blurred kissing that ended up on Tumblr the next morning with the tag #drunklarrystylinson or little things that they both found that made them fall all the harder for each other. He understands that LouisandEleanor are a calm thing; they’re not a vicious cycle that takes months to recover from, they’re not LouisandHarry or this synchronized relationship that makes everybody marvel on why they’re such a perfect fit. They’re just normal, and maybe that’s what Louis wants; to grow old and have children and grandchildren and normality and not people staring at two guys holding hands and whispering to each other; to be like everyone else.

Once upon a time, Harry thought he wanted that too.

Once upon a time, Harry hadn’t met Louis.

“I’m happy for you, really,” Harry says, and tries to smile. It’s a little wobbly. “You’ve got perfection. I wish you every happiness and shit.”

“Haz,” Louis says softly, looking like he’s breaking, too.

“Yeah,” Harry says, biting down hard on his tongue and trying not to cry again.

When he looks up, Louis is gone.

***

Thirty years later, Louis is a proud grandfather of three and Harry is one of those rockstars who became legends and married a girl who shouldn’t be beautiful but is.

They have a son and they call him Louis. (He has a son and calls him Harry.)

Harry and Louis don’t see each other.

Well, they do, when the boys force them to; it’s awkward and neither can look the other in the eye – the strong bond of friendship of thirty years ago is now gone; but still, it’s thirty years on and everyone, even Eleanor, thinks they’re still a little bit in love with each other, they just weren’t meant to be together, not this time around.

Maybe in the next life.

But then again, Harry doesn’t believe in reincarnation.

So maybe it just wasn’t meant to happen.

(He’s at one of their reunions, though, and Louis Tomlinson the third is smiling down at Harry Styles the third, so. He looks at them and thinks, maybe this time.

He doesn’t see Louis, the one he still loves, looking at the two boys and smiling sadly.

Maybe it was always meant to be, just. Not this time.)

**Author's Note:**

> what have i done


End file.
